Whoops.

[azekeil]

I just went out and bought Stuff™.

I just bought a new telly:



It's a 42" Goodmans LD4255HD; I think it's made especially for Comet, where I got it from for £799. I was just going to get a 37" one but it was only £100 extra for the 42". It's huge! See that mug? That's a normal size mug. At least my centre speaker looks in proportion now :)

It's really rather good :)

Also, another toy I ordered a couple of days ago arrived at work today; a Corsair Voyager 8GB USB key. The 8GB is the fastest one they currently do - 31MB/s read, 19MB/s write.. oh yeah. I've installed linux on it to boot off it (which it doesn't quite yet) which should be faster than a normal HDD, certainly faster than a laptop HDD. AND it will work on just about any PC that can boot from USB. AND it'll carry loads of other stuff around too :)

Comments

[ninneviane.livejournal.com]

Ooooo, very nice! :)

Love the tag oopsies :D

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Flatscreen telly *AND* Projector-ma-phone??! Show-off... ;P

What's the deal with having and O/S & software on a USB drive? I'm thinking about it for usage at work since we have to run the same computers in 2-3 schools at once and porting a student's work from one to the other is a pain. Plus I like the idea of turning up for a gig with a memory stick and just using someone else's PC for music or visuals, but knowing all the resources are with me...

Sorry, thinking out loud here. :D

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Well, there are lots of issues here. First of all, it's only Linux that really works off a USB stick. You can get a bastardised version of Windows called BartPE that I've heard will boot off USB, but this is generally for a Rescue CD or similar. I've no idea how well it would work for your use.

If all the machines are the same, that's easier. Otherwise you have to do what I'm just doing now, which is turning the installed version of linux into one that mimics a LiveCD version and detects hardware on bootup. (The reason I don't just use a LiveCD version is that I will want to do all sorts with it, and the whole point of going for a particular version of the OS is so that instructions and tips that people give out on the net will still be applicable to me)..

When I've got it working it should be a fairly simple step to put full instructions somewhere. I think it's not actually going to be that complicated. Let me know if I can help further; I'd be quite interested in getting involved :)

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Cheers fir that - yes, it's XP, but al 12 machines are identical. At present we have one image that we drop on the machine when we begin at any school, and back up the students' work (which we've configured all the software to default save into the same place) at the end of the week.

It's an issue for us, since we do 2 schools in 6 weeks, alternating schools, which has caused some problems...

My techie and i foresaw this idea, though, where each student would have their own 'environment' on a USB stick, so they'd do their work on any physical computer they liked, ie, if we have 10 students, but only 6 in at any time, we need only set up 6 workstations and it doesn't matter which ones as they bring the work with them.

This would also mean if they had to do processor-intensive tasks (eg rendering video), we could havbe one super-fact quad-core PC they could move to just for this task then return to their workstations.

Does that make any sense?

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That MojoPac thing seems like what you want then. Simple and supported too.

'course, if you're worried about them losing the device with all their work on you'll need to arrange for some sort of backup too.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wouldn't let the little dears take them out of the building - they'd be on eBay before you could say 'a weekend's supply of crack cocaine'... ;)

But it would make backups much MUCH easier - one USB hub and the lot could be done in minutes rather than a couple of hours

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Or, back them up with network backup software while they're still in the machines being used using free software like BackupPC.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Another useful link, cheers. The machines aren't currently networked but there's no reason they couldn't be for backup purposes... althohgh if they're all cloned from the same ghost image, will they all have the same username?

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

May be. I suspect it would be very useful to engage them in a conversation asking about backing up and provisioning clones etc.

They may be interested in answering your questions as is because they are catering to your market, and hearing your requirements will help them develop their product.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to a forum post about using BartPE on a USB stick.

[apathyintheuk.livejournal.com]

If thats what you want to do then you might want to look at Mojopac
http://www.mojopac.com

It dosent boot from the stick but uses the host windows XP O/S and effectivly autoruns your own profile when you insert it. from there you can install your own programs onto the usb stick.
It still has a few issues at the mo but worth lookin at.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

That's actually quite cool. I wonder where it gets its files from to emulate the environment - if it's off each host PC then there's still a security risk; I wouldn't use it in a net cafe for example.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Looks like exactly what I'd be after, i think - thanks for that, will give it a look.

*thinky*

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

well... kinda.

I'm thinking this'll be useful in 2 scenarios - when I run Ableton Live for music (dependent on a sample library that can be pretty huge + VST plugins + music hardware) and Arkaos for visuals (dependent on the performance of the video card and possibly video capture cards).

It seems that it'll handle software being moved around, but I wonder about applications that require high-end hardware to function properly?

I'm guessing that it should be ok (if it can handle the different graphics cards of WoW for instance) but I'd like to know for sure...

Re: *thinky*

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Then speak to the company. I don't think it's sure-fire, as they claim a list of supported programs. But they're catering to your student/teacher market, so they should be interested in supporting you.

[meltie.livejournal.com]

Crikey, what happened to the proj?

You'll be wanting to grow your hedge a bit, that'll be rather visible from't road...

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I currently keep my curtain closed, but I'm sort of working my way up to resigning myself to a blind or *shudder* net curtains.

Projector's still there. This was supposed to be a day-to-day telly. Ah well ;)

Congratulations Mein herr!

[nemy.livejournal.com]

£799 aint so bad. Very nice.

[easternpromise.livejournal.com]

You, sir, are a profligate spendaholic.

But ooooooooooh SHINY

[malcygoff.livejournal.com]

nice TV :)
Good choice of the 42 rather than the 37. I bought a 38 Panasonic plasma a couple of years ago, it's looking a little small now :( Still, you makes your choices, etc...

About the voyager usb key - they are verrry sexy; the 8gb is enough for a nice OS (I use backtrack: take from that what you will...) and the rest is handy for drivers, service packs and StuffYouDontWantOthersToSee. bought one for TheBoss and he's putting XP and office on it, even then, at 8gb, there is room to play.

Two things to watch out for, the USB connector is held to the rest of the device on the solder alone - the rubber outer provides very little protection; be careful it bends and snaps quite easily. Also, the rubber lid becomes quite loose when warm - I've lost two of them already!

[malcygoff.livejournal.com]

and by 38, I meant 37 - typos be damned!

HEHEHE

[tianna-j.livejournal.com]

t.v BIG!!!